The desert Arabs who lagged behind will say to thee: "We were engaged in (looking after) our flocks and herds, and our families: do thou then ask forgiveness for us." They say with their tongues what is not in their hearts. Say: "Who then has any power at all (to intervene) on your behalf with Allah, if His Will is to give you some loss or to give you some profit? But Allah is well acquainted with all that ye do. 11 But you thought that the Messenger and the believers would never return to their families, ever, and that was made pleasing in your hearts. And you assumed an assumption of evil and became a people ruined." 12 He who does not believe in God and His Apostle (should know) We have prepared for unbelievers a blazing fire." 13 To God belongs the kingdom of the heavens and the earth. He forgives whom He pleases, and punishes whom He pleases. And God is most forgiving and merciful. 14 Those who had stayed behind will now say, “When you go to receive the war booty, let us also go with you”; they wish to change the Words of Allah; say “You shall never come with us – this is already decreed by Allah”; so they will now say, “But rather you envy us”; in fact they never understood except a little. 15 Say to those of the dwellers of the desert who were left behind: You shall soon be invited (to fight) against a people possessing mighty prowess; you will fight against them until they submit; then if you obey, Allah will grant you a good reward; and if you turn back as you turned back before, He will punish you with a painful punishment. 16 It is not binding on the blind, the lame or the sick (to follow this command); but those who obey God and His Apostle will be admitted by God to gardens with running streams; but those who turn back will suffer a painful doom. 17